Q-Car Queue: The Best Automotive Sleeper Agents

Q-Car Queue: The Best Automotive Sleeper Agents

Named after Q-ships, U-boat-hunting British ships disguised as freighters, Q-cars are stealth machines, unassuming on the outside but hugely fast on the road. Here are the best cars that sneak up on you...quickly

Not just fast but seriously fast, this was the archetypical German Q-car of the post-austerity era, the machine that relaunched a genre...in a cloud of tire smoke. Born as a secret, after-hours project by a Mercedes engineer, this model saw a gargantuan 6.3-liter V8 plucked from the 600 Pullman limousine and put in an S-Class sedan. It was a stately tank that rivaled the most exotic sports cars of its era for speed—capable of peeling off Ferrari-esque 6.3-second 0 to 60 times—and awesome stopping power, with a magic carpet-like, air-suspended ride. Mercedes's modern AMG 63 moniker pays homage to the first and most fondly remembered of the line. Wildly expensive and low-key to a fault, their performance still makes pulses race 45 years on.